De-climatizing food security: Lessons from climate change micro-simulations in Peru

Abstract

This paper brings advances in weather data collection and modeling, and developments in socioeconomic climate microsimulations to bear on the analysis of the implications of climate change (CC) in the design of public policies to combat food insecurity. It uses new downscaled predictions of future climate in 2050, derived from three Earth System Models calibrated with a new historical weather station dataset for Peru. This climate data is used in a three-stage socioeconomic microsimulation model that includes climate risk, and deals with the endogeneity of incomes and simultaneity of expected food consumption and its variability. We estimate the impact of CC on agricultural yields, and find results consistent and fully bounded within what the global simulations literature has found, with yields falling up to 13% in some regions. However, we show that these drops (and increases) in yields translate to much smaller changes in food consumption, and also surprisingly, to very minor impacts on vulnerability to food insecurity. The document explores what explains this surprising result, showing that in addition to characteristics that are specific to Peru, there are household and market mediating mechanisms that are available in all countries, which explain how changes in yields, and corresponding farm incomes have a reduced impact in vulnerability to food insecurity. Finally, in light of these findings, we explore which policies might have greater impact in reducing food insecurity in contexts of hunger prevalence.

Unveiling Peru’s Agricultural Diversity: Navigating Historical and Future Trends in a Post-COVID-19 Context

“…Peru is a South American country located on the Pacific coast (0 • 02 ′ , 18 • 20 ′ south and 68 • 30 ′ , 81 • 25 ′ west) and has an area of 1,285,215 km 2 [24]; due to the variability of climate change, each zone of the country has very specific and different characteristics [24].…”

The Impact Of Climate Change On Productivity and Food Security In Indonesia

“…After all, farmers' livelihoods depend on natural conditions (Mashizha, 2019). The occurrence of significant climate change will impact not only food production but also supply, farmer income and food security (Anríquez & Toledo, 2019;Asmare & Meheret, 2018;Firdaus et al, 2019).…”

FAO Agricultural Development Economics Working Papers

“…These authors find that climate change will significantly impact vulnerability to food security, and that social protection measures and farm-level adaptations strategies can help reduce vulnerability, although not eliminate it. In this same line, Anríquez and Toledo (2016) analyse the implications of climate change in the design of public policies to combat food insecurity in Perú.…”

“…Capaldo et al (2010) proposes a methodological framework in order to assess the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity and food security in Nicaragua. Other studies follow this framework to examine the impact of climate change on food security in countries like Nicaragua and Peru (Karfakis et al 2011;Anríquez and Toledo, 2016). However, the potential impact in different regions and countries is not clear (Wheeler and von Braun, 2013).…”

“…In this study, the analysis follows previous methodological frameworks developed to assess climate change on agricultural productivity (Karfakis et al 2011;Anríquez and Toledo, 2016). The existing studies provide a conceptual model that can be adapted to estimation with Paraguayan household survey data to understand how household caloric consumption and food insecurity may respond to climate change and weather shocks, and the location where negative impacts may be the largest.…”